Whitney announces exhibition on immersive cinema and art

  • Hannah Vuozzo

    • Hito Steyerl (b. 1966), Factory of the Sun, 2015. Video, color, sound; 21 min., looped; with environment, dimensions variable. Collection of the artist; courtesy Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York. Installation view, German Pavilion, 56th Venice Biennale, 2015. Photograph by Manuel Reinartz; image courtesy the artist and Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York

    The Whitney Museum of American Art’s upcoming Dreamlands: Immersive Cinema and Art, 1905–2016 will chronicle the ever-evolving world of cinema. Dreamlands, running October 28, 2016 to February 5, 2017, will traces film’s evolution across its lifetime, exploring how filmmakers and artists have disassembled and reassembled cinema to create a range of “experiences of the moving image,” as a press release said. The featured artworks will include installations, drawings, 3-D environments, sculpture, performance, painting, and more.

    After Oskar Schlemmer (1888–1943), Das Triadische Ballett [Triadic Ballet], 1970. 35mm film transferred to video, color, sound; 29 min. Courtesy Global Screen, Munich. Produced by Bavaria Atelier for the Südfunk, Stuttgart, in collaboration with Inter Nationes and RTB (Belgian Television)Director: Helmut Amann. Choreography and costume designs: Oskar Schlemmer, 1922. Artistic advisors: Ludwig Grote, Xanti Schwinsky, and Tut Schlemmer ©1970 Bavaria Atelier for SWR in collaboration with Inter Nationes and RTB
    The works will be primarily from American filmmakers and artists but some influential 1920s German pieces will also be display. The numerous filmmakers and artists featured will include: Walt Disney, Frances Bodomo, Bruce Conner, Alex Da Corte, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Liam Gillick, Syd Mead, Mathias Poledna, Oskar Schlemmer, Hito Steyerl, and Stan VanDerBeek.

    The exhibition will consist of three different parts, each  showcasing distinct periods of film’s technological evolution from the early 1900s to present-day. The earlier works capture a period of experimentation from 1905 to the 1930s when “sweeping camera shots, abstraction, color, music, and kaleidoscopic space were used to create what [film historian] Tom Gunning has called a ‘cinema of attractions.’”

    Alex Da Corte (b. 1980) with Jayson Musson (b. 1977), Easternsports, 2014. Four-channel video, color, sound; 152 min., with four screens, neon, carpet, vinyl composition tile, metal folding chairs, artificial oranges, orange scent, and diffusers. Score by Devonté Hynes. Collection of the artists; courtesy David Risley Gallery, Copenhagen, and Salon 94, New York. Installation view, Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania, 2014 © Alex Da Corte; image courtesy the artist and Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania

    The next part of the exhibition displays work from the 1940s to 1980s. Included in this large breadth is CROSSROADS, Bruce Conner’s 1976 short film capturing the July 25, 1946 Operation Crossroads Baker underwater nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific; Destruct Film, a 1967 projective installation by Jud Yalkut which uses the projected light as a sculptural material; and production design paintings for Syd Mead’s 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner.

    Lastly, the period from the 1990s to present-day exhibit a highly diverse collection of works that demonstrate the introduction and incorporation of more advanced technologies such as touch screen and “virtual space.” Also on display will be Factory of the Sun, an installation by Hito Steyerl, originally created for the German Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale.

     

     

    Exit mobile version